


skiving off

by Darkfromday



Series: Harry Potter's Birthdays (Canon-Averse) [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Albus Dumbledore Lives, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Harry Potter's Birthday, Post-Second War with Voldemort, The Ministry of Magic (Harry Potter) is Terrible, nobody panic; Harry's already killed Voldemort and Dumbledore burned the body
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-28 05:48:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20059036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkfromday/pseuds/Darkfromday
Summary: AU after OotP.Voldemort's dead and Fudge wants to celebrate the Boy-Who-Lived's eighteenth birthday with an all-day speech series. Dumbledore wants the Ministry to self-congratulate somewhere else. Harry just wants to have a quiet, peaceful birthday.





	skiving off

**Author's Note:**

> It's Harry and JKR's birthday! Here, have a fic with Harry and Albus.
> 
> _checks notes_ ...Oh, what, Dumbledore's dead in canon? I still don't care.
> 
> Suppose the following instead: Sixth year is Harry and Dumbledore and their respective armies finding and destroying all the Horcruxes before Voldemort sets Hogwarts on fire and everyone's forced into hiding. Harry murders Voldemort really hard in January 1998 and the wizarding world can't stop celebrating between Death Eater round-ups. The Ministry of Magic sets a big celebratory day for July 31 to acknowledge Hogwarts' restoration and kiss Harry's arse all in one, and he's hoodwinked into showing up.

There's a hand ruffling his hair.

Harry stirs, and almost says _Five more minutes, Ron_. The feeling of being gently nudged awake while the surrounding air smells of books, boy's clothes and the spark of magic is so familiar that he doesn't remember where or _when_ he is for a moment. Then the hand pauses and lifts, and more of his sleep-fogged mind clears: he hasn't been able to sleep in his old dormitory at Hogwarts in over a year.

"Huh...?"

"Harry, wake up," a gentle voice encourages.

_Where am I...?_ He desperately reaches for the pieces of his memory floating around in his head. He wants so badly to go back to sleep. Unfortunately, the more he tries to think, the more he wakes up, and the more he grimaces. There's also a really irritating droning noise in the distance, like a Muggle loudspeaker turned entirely too high—

_Shite!_

Abruptly, he remembers. The battle at the lake, with curses whipping his hair into new and interesting shapes. His friends and loved ones felling Death Eaters, with some falling themselves, taking pieces of his heart with them. The moment he sent Ron and Hermione away via Portkey and turned to face the bane of his existence—

Voldemort laughing, then dueling, then screeching, then falling too—

And now here, six months on. Back at Hogwarts, newly repaired and perfectly ready for Britain's grossly-incompetent Minister of Magic to make seven or eight speeches on her grounds and give out _stupid_ Orders of Merlin, as if anyone left alive _cared_ whether or not they received a shiny rolled-up scroll and an appendix to add to their names.

_Fudge was talking about bravery_, Harry thinks, and clenches his fist. _The useless bloody coward. __I couldn't stay there and listen_.

But then who's touching his shoulder?

He finally glances up—and relaxes just a tad upon recognizing his former headmaster and current mentor. Albus Dumbledore is leaning over him, with one arm outstretched and the other casually tapping a beat against his hip. His silver eyebrows are barely furrowed, as though he's only just solved an engaging problem and is having some trouble putting his thinking cap away. But as Harry blinks owlishly up at him, that faint frown smooths itself away and he smiles brightly.

"Studious though you can be when a subject appeals to you, Harry, I will admit I did not expect to find you here."

_Oh, right_. He's in the Hogwarts library.

"I thought to go somewhere no one would look for me," he explains, while at the same time thinking _Well, almost no one_. Most people would seek him out at the Quidditch pitch first, or perhaps the Great Hall, or the Room of Requirement if they knew of it. His friends might be tempted to search his usual haunts, and the Ministry's goons _definitely_ wouldn't consider anywhere else—but Dumbledore always seemed to know where to find him.

"Clever of you," the headmaster chuckles now. He takes a handful of his brilliant scarlet robes and sweeps them aside so he can slide on the bench next to Harry and pin him with a gentle look over his spectacles. "Though it would not have worked as well had one of the Aurors currently combing the school grounds found you sleeping here instead."

Harry blushes. Glances away. "Er... it wasn't my plan to fall asleep. I was just..."

He lets the sentence hang.

Dumbledore finishes it almost immediately. "Tired."

"Yeah."

Voldemort's been cold ashes for six months, and Harry still doesn't get a full night's sleep. Far too often he jerks awake, or doesn't find rest at all. He frequently jumps at shadows when travelling by foot. The tiny private flat he's rented from Tom in the Leaky Cauldron is both comfortably small and suffocating. The press and government's renewed interest in dogging his steps is almost as nerve-wracking as listening for Death Eaters and constantly using code-words to meet his remaining friends.

It's not a subject he knows how to breach, even with Dumbledore—how to move on, find a 'new normal' after so many months running and fighting and living outside. The _Daily Prophet's_ incessant owls seeking interviews and the Ministry's aggravating summonses of himself and his friends aren't exactly the normal he imagined for himself, but he has at least tried to weather those storms. _But tone-deaf celebrations..._

"Harry," Dumbledore says gently, startling him out of his thoughts, "I hope you know that you are more than welcome to come and stay at Hogwarts for as long as you need. After all you have sacrificed, all you have accomplished, it would—and should—be natural for you to ask me for a quiet place to rest. It would be my privilege to host you here."

He blinks, and feels a prickly warmth at the corners of his eyes that he chases away with quick dissenting words. "I'm past the age to be a student."

"You are eighteen years old, and plenty of Hogwarts' children turn nineteen or even enter their twenties before leaving school. You also hold the distinction of protecting Hogwarts from threats internal and external for nearly all of your time here, which earns you quite a lot of favor from both the castle and her staff." There's a pregnant pause before the old man continues more quietly. "And... I'm sure you are aware that I would personally be pleased to know you were safe and nearby."

The warmth sinks and settles in Harry's chest. He glances back over and nods at his mentor, letting the sentiment wash over the rest of him. "Thank you, sir."

Dumbledore waves his hand as if to say _think nothing of it_, though they both are aware of how significant his words were. Even a year ago, they would not have been said for any of the school's ears to take back to the wrong people.

Cornelius Fudge's voice, enhanced by _Sonorus_, drifts faintly back to Harry's ears from the edge of the grounds: _esteemed citizens... courage and dedication of our Boy-Who-Lived... confronting You-Know-Who's terror head-on..._

_Opportunistic prat_, he thinks viciously.

"Talking of your age, I must ask: were you truly planning to humor Cornelius and his crowd for the entire day? This day in particular?"

Harry shrugs. "I was going to sneak out after the first hour regardless."

"I should hope so!" Dumbledore chides. "It is not every day one turns eighteen—or any age, truly. The Ministry of Magic's post-war fervor will come and go, but you ought not to let yourself be swallowed by it. You should be out celebrating your birthday, Harry."

"I'm pretty sure Hermione and Ron and the Weasleys are planning a dinner or something later. They Flooed me pretty early this morning about it and seemed more annoyed than I was by Fudge's summons."

"Yes, well, that would be due to the large party I have been sworn to give you no details on." The headmaster twinkles at the way Harry's jaw drops. "The 'or something' you mentioned is a bit more concrete than you seem to have expected."

"I didn't think..." _...they'd have one at all._

The Weasleys were still grieving the loss of Bill and Charlie; himself, Ron, Hermione and Ginny were still coming to terms with losing Neville and Luna to Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange. Harry had made himself scarce after the funerals for that very reason: why bother people by hovering around, reminding them of who they sacrificed in order for him to fire the last curse?

Dumbledore sighs, and lays a hand lightly on Harry's shoulder again. He squeezes strongly to steady his once-student, and makes his words kind but deliberate. "Now that you have seen the prophecy fulfilled, you should know even better than I of the power love holds, and how it endures. The Weasleys' loss of family members does not make _you_ any less their family of choice. I am sure the same is true for Miss Granger, and for Remus and Miss Tonks, and for countless others whose lives you have touched."

Harry nods again. He's not sure what to say or if he should say anything, so he just sits, grounding himself in the feeling of his mentor rubbing his shoulder and the stiffness of Hogwarts' library benches and the tickle of dust motes passing his nose on the way to the stacks.

"Is Fudge expecting me back?" he eventually asks, a bit awkwardly.

"Without a doubt," Dumbledore confirms. "But I did not come here for him."

Harry can't help but grin. He glances sideways at his headmaster and affects a scandalized mien. "Why, Professor—did you come to help me _skive off_ stuffy award celebrations?"

"Such a crude term! No, Harry, I am merely _relocating_ you to a place which more desperately needs your presence."

_Sure, sure._ "The Burrow?"

"Perhaps." The twinkle returns. "Rather than guessing, why don't you follow me to the gates and find out?"

Harry makes his decision in about ten seconds. When he stands up and yawns and stretches, Dumbledore ruffles his hair again and offers him a jaunty "Shall we?" over his sputters and protests.

They walk in step to Hogwarts' front doors, and pass into the bright afternoon sunshine. The headmaster's robes glitter and reflect back as a stripe of fire moving across the grounds; Harry's more sedate black stands out only due to how green the newly regrown grass is. By the time it's the headmaster's birthday next month, the outside of the school will have fully recovered from the invasion by Death Eaters and the Darkest of Voldemort's creature allies.

"Potter! Harry Potter!"

Mere steps from the Apparition point beyond the gates, Harry groans. Minister Fudge's spirited cry has called nearly every other person's attention to his presence, and thus his absence at the haphazard collection of chairs holding several Ministry bigwigs, journalists and other social hangers-on.

"_There_ you are, my boy! We were about to call for the London contingent of Aurors—anyway, come on over, we were just speaking of your defense of the Department of Mysteries in your younger years—"

Fudge jogs across the grass, clearly intent on taking Harry by the arm and dragging him back to bureaucratic hell. When Dumbledore steps in front of him and straightens to his full height, Harry wants to hug the old man like a child.

"Ah, Cornelius. Old age and forgetfulness foil me again—I'm afraid Harry has another urgent appointment to which I promised to escort him."

The Minister stumbles like his strings have been cut. "What? But, but—"

"You're correct, of course—what is a celebration without its guest of honor?" Harry sees the side of Dumbledore's silver beard twitch. "Perhaps it would be best for you to pack things up here and send your guests home. I'm sure they will reconvene at whatever other location you see fit in the distant future, yes? In the meantime, Minerva can escort you off the grounds in my absence."

"But we—but he—"

"Terribly sorry, Minister," Harry adds, and makes sure his 'apologetic' smile is as disturbing as damaged glass. "Places to be, you know. Maybe another time."

He turns, and Dumbledore turns with him. They cross the gate, and only exchange conspiratory grins when the iron shuts behind them and their dumbfounded guest is out of sight.

"Remind me later this evening to teach you a few phrases and facial expressions that will serve you well in social politics," Dumbledore says thoughtfully. "You handled that rather well, but I should like to see you hone your skills against a... well, a skilled opponent. And be comfortable at stuffy parties."

Harry wrinkles his nose. "Is that my birthday present from you?"

"Harry, you think too little of me. That is _one_ of my presents for you."

"Just checking. I got a toothpick from the Dursleys once for Christmas, you know?"

"Please don't remind me of that particular family on such an important day," Dumbledore requests with false cheer. "I tend to recall other things in the bargain, such as how easy it is to utterly destroy a foe with... a toothpick, you said? Hmm, yes, that exact gift. You forget that I've survived three wars, dear boy."

The younger man swallows. "Right then, moving on... can I get back to you on the houseroom-at-Hogwarts thing?"

"Certainly."

"Great! Er... about the location of the party..."

Dumbledore abruptly looks embarrassed. "Ah. Well, I can assist you or give you the address—though, might you do me the courtesy of acting extremely surprised when you arrive? I did rather spoil the secret of your party."

Harry snorts, but agrees to act just shy of bewildered and overwhelmed so his headmaster might avoid Molly Weasley's wrath. He's not _quite_ so agreeable as to pick side-along Apparition, though; he's been a man for a year now, he'll be fine getting to the Burrow or wherever on his own.

Dumbledore smiles down at him as he passes him a slip of paper with a familiar address in looping script. "Are you ready?"

"Ready as ever, sir."

And so Harry's birthday immensely improves the moment they disappear with synchronized _pop_s.


End file.
